


Louis Has a Top-Secret Boyfriend Too

by Coyotebee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Crack, Crack Pairings, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coyotebee/pseuds/Coyotebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Niall revealed his secret love, Louis tells his own romantic tale. He met his one true love at a fashion show - not that he realized it at the time. At first, he hated the guy.</p><p>Some sort of spin-off of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/818856">Niall Has a Top-Secret Boyfriend.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Niall Has a Top-Secret Boyfriend (Everyone Else Ships It)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/818856) by [roaroftheninth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roaroftheninth/pseuds/roaroftheninth). 



> Crack. Crack, crack, _crack_.

“Niall is shagging Justin Bieber. Okay, I’m processing that without getting an aneurysm. So I think I can handle the truth about who _you’re_ shagging,” Brooke says to Louis.

Louis has Harry pinned against him, covering his mouth to prevent him from saying anything. He smirks into Harry’s curls.

“Can you though?” he asks.

“Our bodyguards know CPR. She’ll be fine if she has medical issues,” Niall says.

At that, Louis lets Harry go.

“I think I’m the one who needs CPR right now,” Harry says, catching his breath. Zayn goes over and pats his back a few times.

“Louis, you should be a little less violent,” Liam says.

“Who is it then?” Brooke asks.

Louis tells her.

“Wait, do you two not _hate_ each other?” Brooke asks. “How did – I need the backstory about this because this is not – I can’t – I can’t – my brain cells are dying, trying to figure this one out.”

“Okay, story time! Here is my epic love story,” Louis declares.

***

_Really buggs me that artists we're fans of ,flip on us in the press !_

The first thing that entered Louis mind as he read Niall’s tweet from his computer screen was: _You spelled “bug” wrong._

He wondered what the issue was this time, who said what about who. His questions were answered when Niall called him.

“Jake Bugg was interviewed in _ShortList_ and cut into us, saying we were a terrible band and shit like that,” Niall said.

Louis happened to be by the kitchen table at this time. Laid out on it, was Jake Bugg’s debut album, purchased two weeks ago after hearing the song “Lightning Bolt” on the radio. So enchanted, he not only bought the album, he bought one of Bugg’s EPs. He also got his first single. And then his second single. And finally, because he liked him so much and just wanted to support the guy’s career, he ordered a bag that had the Jake Bugg logo pressed on it. The thing was large and heinously yellow. It would be an assault on his eyeballs of passer-bys if he actually took it out into public. The bag was also made for a woman. Therefore, there was no possibility this bag would ever come to good use. Louis knew all this, but spent the money anyway because that’s how much he admired Jake Bugg.

“Are you serious?” Louis said.

“Let me read it to you. Hold on, let me find the link again...”

“Okay,” Louis said.

Ten burning seconds passed and the other end of the line was silent the whole time. “Niall?” Louis asked.

“Sorry, the page is loading.”

“Right.”

Ten more seconds.

“It’s still loading.”

Louis huffed.

“Yep, still loading.”

Louis slumped over. “This is getting anticlimactic.”

“Okay, got it,” Niall said. “The articles says, ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure they have a good laugh. But it’s easy to, isn’t it? When you don’t have to write any songs. People call them the new Beatles because they broke America, but that don’t mean a thing. I mean, One Direction must know that they’re terrible. They must know... Calling them the new rock stars is a ridiculous statement. And people should stop making it.'”

Louis’ outburst of anger was succinct and concentrated, employing a variety of curses, mostly his favourite word, which was “twat.” It was over in seconds. Niall shared his own insults which wasn’t much different from Louis’, except for one Irish swear he threw in there, and a word he learned from their trip to Canada – “hoser.” Louis couldn’t tell if he used the word appropriately, but he trusted Niall’s verbal skills.

Niall hung up, and Louis sat down in front of his laptop again. Lambasting Jake Bugg with Niall did nothing to tone down his aggression. So he went on Twitter, and clicked on the official Jake Bugg Twitter account.

“Hi @JakeBugg,” Louis started to write.

And then he had to pause, giving himself time to think of a witty insult. So over the span of a half-hour, Louis thought about his nemesis and what he could make fun of. He even wrote out a several potential messages in Microsoft Word in bullet-point form. He could take a swipe at his weed habit, maybe. He could mock his pretentious authenticity. Louis searched for a photo of him, and toyed with the idea of insulting his hair. But no, that was childish. He needed to keep the insult classy, be the adult he was striving to be.

He ranked the messages he had, and called up Niall for a second opinion. They settled on, “Do you think slagging off boy bands makes you more indie?” It was in close competition with the classic message of “Hi @JakeBugg. Fuck you” that ended with a smiley face emoticon.

So he typed out this message that took him a half-hour to come up with, and after he sent it, thought to himself, _There, that does it. I’m very clever._

***

A month later, Louis and his bandmates were at a fashion show in London. For this event, their hairstyles were heightened by an inch and half, and their trousers were made so snug, they could’ve been chastity belts.

The main hall was where everyone gathered. Niall was off talking with Nick Grimshaw, and Liam was in a corner taking blue glitter out of Zayn’s hair. The glitter fell on him as he was walking by Lady Gaga, who had it all gathered in an oblong bowl that floated above her head. Wavy blue material covered her whole front and gathered at her feet. She was there as a waterfall.

Louis spotted Harry by a Prada display. The room was crowded; it took a moment for the people to shuffle about in such a way that he could see Cara Delevingne beside him. She wasn’t a waterfall, unfortunately.

Louis wanted to go catch up with her too. Before he did, he wanted to get himself a drink. He started to make his way over to the bar.

Four steps in, and Louis caught sight of a somewhat familiar figure skirting by the crowd...

It was Jake Bugg, ill-dressed and dull-eyed.

Louis, wanting to know where he was going, who he was with, watched him walk. Jake stopped at Cara, handing her a glass of red wine.

Louis nearly did a skip. He decided to forgo the bar to immediately make his way to Harry, Cara, and Jake. This was a prime situation, his chance to see how uncomfortable he could make this arsehole. 

A few days after his Twitter reply, Jake had gone further with his verbal assault on the band. In an interview, he mumbled out, “I don't know how they can really be considered a band, though, to be honest. I'm not too sure. I think they're there to look good. Music wise? I assume they don't really have a clue, so we'll just see.''

So Louis was set to take him apart right then, and it was going to be with supreme classiness. Louis would show him he wasn’t intimidated by him, and more than that – he’d show him he was unaffected, above petty feuds.

He weaved through the people. A snaggle-toothed server came up to him with a silver tray balanced skillfully on his palm.

“Quiche?” the server asked.

“No thanks,” Louis said.

He was on the prowl. He wasn’t being deterred by French cuisine. So when a second server offered him quiche, he simply shook his head while keeping his eye on Jake.

He made it through the first throng of men in suits and flashy women. He was halfway to his prey. Then someone nudged his shoulder. Louis turned, and saw another server smiling at him, asking, “Would you like to try some quiche?”

Louis sighed. “No, just no.”

The server immediately frowned and peered at the quiche like he was feeling sorry for it. Louis kept on and tried to tame his growing frustration. The crowd thickened around him, and about twelve people surged forward, right at him, blocking his way. He tried to standstill method at first, forcing everyone to move around him like he was a rock and they were the flowing stream. The elbowing though, became annoying, and then someone got his shoulder, pushing him backward.

Louis ended up beside a man in horn-rimmed glasses. This man decided this was the time and place to do the can-can, despite the lack of music. He stuck up a leg, and Louis had to fling himself back to avoid it. Beyond the man, the crowd was even thicker than it was seconds before. Louis sighed again. He had to go further back to find a detour.

He craned his neck to see and shuffled sideways as much as he could. In the process, that snaggle-toothed server, having already forgotten Louis’s face, flashed him a smile, showed him a tray, and --

“... quiche?”

“No, I don’t want the quiche! No quiche! Get the quiche away from me!”

By the time Louis got to the bar, he wasn’t sure what he hated the more – Jake Bugg or quiche.

“Harry! Cara!” Louis called out.

Both his friends turned their heads to him, including Jake. Louis looked at him pointedly, but left his face otherwise unreadable. Jake’s reaction: Be as unreadable. His lips stayed taut and his eyes lifeless.

This was Louis’s first real look at him. He had only seen a couple promo pictures up to that point, and that snide interview, so Louis was disturbed by himself when he peered into his face, because in the back of his mind, he thought Jake Bugg was almost handsome. No matter though – his asshattery overpowered the smidgen of physical attractiveness he had.

Harry picked up on what Louis was trying to do and raised an eyebrow at him. Louis didn’t acknowledge it – he set himself beside Harry, and started what should be a great tension-filled conversation.

Louis and Cara asked each other how they were. Not knowing about the Twitter feud, she nudged Jake closer and said, “Jake, this is Louis. He’s also from One Direction. Louis, this is Jake.”

Some civility shined through because Louis and Jake shook hands. However, they both narrowed their eyes at each other.

“Oh, God...” Louis could hear Harry whisper into his glass of wine.

Cara placed a hand on Jake’s arm. “Jake’s an emerging artist. Came out with his debut album a few months back.”

“So I’ve heard,” Louis said to Jake. Jake kept the blank expression on, meanwhile Louis felt a bizarre pull toward him that he was trying hard to resist.

“So Jake, are you enjoying yourself here? Must be new to you,” Harry asked, ever-polite, even up against the worst tossers.

“Yeah, I s’pose,” Jake said, shrugging. “Good food, anyway. Not really my kind of thing, you know what I mean?”

Louis rolled his eyes. Didn’t try to hide it either. Jake didn’t see this though.

“Yeah, it’s a whole other world definitely,” Harry said.

“Get used to them,” Cara said to Jake. “They can be fun, even for people who aren’t into fashion.”

“Yeah, I went to the Freed show. They have the craziest clothes,” Harry said.

“Oh yeah, it’s suspenseful just watching the models stay on their feet,” Louis said.

Jake blinked. With a frown of boredom, he said, “I think the best thing about these fashion things is how short the shows are. A half-hour and it’s done.”

“Jake...” Cara said, shaking her head, but giggling.

Harry let out a courteous chuckle.

The grand moment had come to Louis, had come easily, hinting that this was meant to be, like the universe wanted him to get his revenge because from here, he could see how to to attack.

“Yeah, because a half-hour is all you can afford off your busy schedule,” Louis said. “Me and my bandmates could be here all week if we wanted to since, you know, our whole job is to stand around and look good. But you have songs to write... Songs about council estates and graffiti, right?”

Louis then bowed his head. “Cheers, mate!” he said and strode away into the crowd.

Jake’s face stayed cold and expressionless as he said all that, but Louis was sure he got under his skin, and this gave him amazing satisfaction.

***

“Oh God, this is _Pride and Prejudice_ , isn’t it? It’s _Pride and Prejudice_ ,” Brooke says. She takes a big gulp of her coffee.

“I don’t know what that’s about, so,” Louis says, looking to the lads. They all shrug as well.

“It starts off with the arrogant Mr. Darcy insulting Elizabeth Bennett, and then Elizabeth Bennett turns it back on him. They don’t like each other after that, but by the end of the story they’re in love.”

“Aww, Louis has found his Mr. Darcy!” Zayn says, and sweeps his finger under Louis’ chin.

“No, that’s not how it is. Let me continue my story,” Louis says.

“I’m so into this. Even I haven’t heard all the details,” Niall says.

“Too busy shagging Justin,” Harry says.

“Stop bringing that up,” Liam says. “It doesn’t mesh well with my belief that they just hold hands.”

***

Louis’ smugness wasn’t a state that would last for long, and it would be a hard, quick descent that took place at Jake Bugg’s Burberry concert.

It was just after dinner, and the floor was steadily filling up. It wasn’t the usual audience for an indie musician’s show – being at a fashion event, everyone was wearing clothes that were too expensive to dance in. Even someone with a looser outfit wouldn’t move, in fear of sweating into the material.

Nowhere else to go, Louis stayed for the show, but didn’t care enough to get close to the stage. He hung at the very back with Eleanor and Niall where the crowd had thinned out. They were going to chat through the entire performance, since Jake didn’t deserve anymore attention.

Jake walked onto the stage. He didn’t smile. All he did was scoop up his guitar and mumble, “Hello, I’m Jake Bugg and this song’s called ‘Lightning Bolt.’”

“Oh look, there’s Cara,” Eleanor said, looking up to the balcony.

Cara waved down at them. She then gazed at the stage, grinning adoringly at Jake. Her whole figure lit up when a nearby photographer took a picture of her.

“Working overtime, I suppose,” Eleanor said.

“Yeah, she must be doing loads of shows here today,” Niall said.

“That’s not what I mean. She’s not just a model, she’s a beard,” Eleanor whispered.

“For... _Jake Bugg_?” Louis asked.

Eleanor nodded. Louis and Niall chortled.

“See those heart eyes she’s giving him? I taught her to do that,” Eleanor said proudly.

Jake was too much of a prick for Louis to feel any sympathy for him and his closeted state. But Louis allowed himself to peer over at Jake. He was a little too pleased to have learned this fact about him and experienced a very strange sense of... opportunity.

Two songs in, an extremely inebriated woman wearing a long scarf came beside Louis. Her boyfriend was with her, and she was gripping his arm as she stuck her iPhone in front of them. She was taking selfies.

Louis eyed Niall in a way that meant, “Watch what I’m about to do.”

He slipped himself beside the drunk woman, rolling out his tongue for the picture. The drunk woman giggled.

“Anudderrrone!” she slurred out and Louis obliged.

Louis, knowing he had a steadier grip, took the iPhone from the woman’s hand to take the picture himself. The woman let him, but then for some reason, the phone fumbled out of Louis’ hand.

It hit the floor. Jake Bugg’s music was loud enough to mute the terrible crash that must have happened. Louis dove for it, temporarily convinced physics would allow him to catch the phone in mid-air, and of course, it was not so. He picked it up from the sticky floor.

“Oh, shit!” Niall said. Eleanor’s eyes widened.

Two distinct cracks ran from the top of the phone to the bottom. Louis’ stomach dropped. He turned to the drunk woman and her boyfriend.

“Nooooo!” the drunk girl said. “You smaaashed it! Look, there’s...” She started counting the cracks on the phone, eyes squinting. “One... two... three... _four_ cracks in it!”

“Not that it’s much better, but there’s only two cracks in it,” Louis said.

“No, I see _four!_ ”

“Whatever, I’m sorry! I’ll get you a new one,” Louis said.

“ _You broke my phone!_ ”

“Calm down...” Eleanor said.

The drunk woman suddenly leaped toward Louis. Louis sunk himself into the crowd to avoid her.

“I’ll replace it, honest!” Louis said.

The drunk woman gargled something from a flask, then pushed her way through the people. She grasped their arms as she approached. Louis noticed her long lacquered nails digging into their sleeves, and suddenly they were possibly the most threatening objects Louis ever saw, worse than a gun, worse than a Samurai sword or nunchucks. He had to get away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on crack and willing to share it.

Louis tried to keep it casual at first by walking briskly between the audience members. Someone called him an asshole for shoving his girlfriend aside a little too hard, but this was his life at stake.

He took a cautionary glance behind him, and he was glad he did because the drunk woman was closer than he would’ve thought. Considering her alcohol intake, she was inhumanly agile. Louis sped up his pace.

A strange squawking noise sounded out, and Louis knew it had to be her. He looked back again and saw that the drunk woman was starting to all-out _charge_ at him like a bull. Louis had no choice but to run as well.

Louis thought he could confuse her by twisting his way through the people, going left and right, not just steamrolling straight through.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” Louis kept repeating. He ran and ran until he shoved past a girl and skidded into a velvet rope line he wasn’t expecting. It caught him at the waist, and Louis had been running too fast to come to stop at the moment of contact. His feet went three steps beyond the boundary it made, and that’s when Louis lost his footing and toppled over. The posts collapsed as Louis did.

Like the dropped phone, the clatter of metal couldn’t be heard, despite the posts being heavier. It was because the music was even louder here, and, there on his knees, Louis realized he had stumbled his way to the very front of the stage. Only ten feet away from him was Jake Bugg, strumming his guitar and peering at him in confusion.

Panicked about the drunk woman and also panicked about being in the bouncers-only space, he hoisted himself up. Unfortunately, the one bouncer hired for this show was good at his job – Louis got to his feet then was suddenly being tackled back down to the floor.

“Hey, get off! I’m going, I’m going!” Louis shouted above the music. He recognized the song being “Trouble Town,” fittingly fast-paced for all the action that was happening to him.

“You’re outta here, mate! You’re leaving this building!” the bouncer said, hauling Louis up.

“What?! This was an accident! I didn’t mean to be here!”

“Don’t fuck with me. I saw you gunning for the front.”

“No, that’s not what was happening! Hey!” Louis said and squirmed out of the bouncers grip. “Listen to me!”

The eyes of the whole front row were on them. He didn’t care though, he wanted justice. He was being unfairly reprimanded, and he needed to set things straight.

“I accidentally dropped –”

Squawking pierced his ears. Louis and the bouncer whipped their heads to the crowd and saw the drunk woman. Her whole body was heaving up and down with anger, and her shoulders tensed tight into her, making her collarbones stick out. What made her more menacing now was her hair – her updo was now a side-do, lolling off her head.

“Okay, settle down!” Louis told her.

In one swift movement, he yanked off the scarf off she had on her neck. She bunched the tip into her hand. She proceeded to whip Louis with it. She got him on top of his head and on the shoulder.

It was important to note that this wasn’t a knitted scarf or a cotton scarf – this was a fashionable _vinyl_ scarf. This meant that it had actual, painful impact. Louis had to step back to avoid more whipping, which had him close to the stage again.

The woman took another approach, which was to launch herself at Louis. They collapsed onto the floor. The bouncer came, trying to break them apart.

Strangely, Louis could hear things such as the bouncer’s grunts, and the drunk woman’s screeches. Jake and his band had stopped playing music.

Another sound he could hear – a rip. His trousers. His trousers had ripped at the arse.

Louis tried to push the woman away from him and more toward the bouncer. It worked – the bouncer got one of her arms. In defense, she gave him a whip with her scarf. This assault aggravated the bouncer enough to make a faux-pas – he hit the woman across the face. She immediately started wailing, and got even more violent – her arms turned like a windmill, slapping both Louis and the bouncer on their chests.

A calm guitar chord progression began, and Jake’s shadow came over Louis. He stood at the edge of the stage with his guitar and microphone, singing sweetly, as though trying to soothe them. It was “Country Song” and the audience was laughing.

Louis managed to crawl away from the bouncer and the drunk woman. He put his arm against his bum to conceal the tear.

“Hey, Louis! Are you okay?”

Louis looked into the crowd of gaping eyes and saw Liam bounding toward him.

“My trousers!”

Liam though, was distracted by the fight going on between the woman and the bouncer. In an act of chivalry, Liam went over to help the bouncer, who was now underneath the woman, clearly losing the battle. He got her by the arms, twisted them backward.

Louis saw someone else jump out of the crowd – the drunk woman’s boyfriend. He was armed with a bottle of perfume. Louis knew where this was going.

“Liam! Watch out!”

The boyfriend sprayed Liam in the face with the scent. Liam yelped and covered his eyes. The woman was set free.

“I’m down! I’m down!” Liam said. Louis scampered over to him to drag him away from the woman before she attacked him. It wasn’t the best decision – the boyfriend sprayed Louis in the face too, for good measure.

Fortunately, he only got it in one eye. The most annoying part was that he recognized the scent – it was the One Direction fragrance. Louis pawed at his stinging eyeball, wiping the flood of involuntary tears.

The audience was still laughing as Jake continued crooning his calm little song over them.

Now Louis had a hand soothing his eye, and the other hand set over the rip on his trousers. He inched his way over to the woman and bouncer. The woman had finally worn herself out and was being dragged away to the side. Louis zeroed in on the scarf dangling from her shoulder and stole it. He had to – it was the only thing around to cover up his arse. He started wrapping it around his waist.

Now registering how embarrassing this all was, Louis called out to Liam.

“Let’s get out of here!” he said.

The crowd started clapping as he hobbled away, holding the scarf at his hips, and his left eye was closed tight, making his face all wonky. Though his vision was halved, he could see Jake in his periphery, watching him. He was literally the worst person to have witnessed an event like this.

Louis was a self-assured person, not easily embarrassed, but being a spectacle as he was getting whipped, mauled, and perfumed while tearing his trousers wasn’t a confidence test he could pass. Knowing an enemy had seen it made it mortifying – all that composure he showed off to Jake earlier had been brutally negated.

Needing to wash out the perfume, he and Liam went in search of men’s toilets once they were out of the venue. And because the humiliation wasn’t sufficient, he walked right into a hall of photographers. Right away, their lenses were on him, flashing photos of his one-eyed, ruffled, scarf-clad state.

***

“Wow, your tail must have been tucked firmly between your legs after that,” Brooke says.

“Definitely. I stayed though, to get _some_ of my pride back. I went to an after-party.”

“What about your trousers?”

“A designer gave me another pair to borrow.”

“Louis made sure they were nice and flexible. You know, in case he got into another scrap,” Zayn says.

“But the scarf did make him known for being fashion-forward,” Liam says.

“And defying gender norms,” Niall says.

“Seriously, Brooke – the manskirt,” Liam says. “He was one of the fashion highlights because of that, and now Topman is coming out with a line of them. All because Louis wrapped that scarf around himself and got his picture taken.”

“Anyway, so all of us went to this after-party and –” Louis began.

“And since destiny really wanted to challenge the strength of our stomachs, it turns out Jake was there,” Zayn says.

“Prepare for that aneurysm,” Harry says, wagging an eyebrow at Brooke.

***

“Hello,” Jake said.

Louis was just standing against a wall, peering into his second glass of wine, waiting for a server to come by with a third one.

Louis glanced at Jake, and proceeded to stare determinedly forward. Jake must have been flying high off of Louis’ humiliation. He could only be here to do one thing.

“You have my permission to laugh. It must feel satisfying. But if you think I’m that embarrassed by what happened, I’m not.”

“No, I’m not here to laugh at you.”

Louis looked back at Jake, who was as dead in the eyes as ever, trying to determine if he was being sincere.

“I’m not here to laugh at you,” he repeated, picking up on Louis’ confusion.

Louis threw his arms up in exasperation, saying, “Are you going to claim you’re too fucking cool to care? You’re above all this? Really dignified even though –”

“Stop. You’re assuming you know everything about me when you obviously fucking don’t,” Jake said, stepping right in front of Louis.

They glared each other and Louis couldn’t understand himself anymore, really didn’t know what was going here. The thing was, the tension between them wasn’t all antagonism, and he didn’t know how that could be. What he did know was what he wanted out of this. To add to it, he sensed that Jake wanted the same thing as well.

“I said a few things about you and your band, and I stand by them,” Jake continued. “It’s just what I think, mate. Do I look like the type who listens to ice cream-coloured boybands?”

“Getting your approval isn’t the problem. It’s that you talked shit about us in the press. It’s fucking rude to do that.”

“You can’t – fuck, we’re not doing this here in front of everyone. Let’s have a chat somewhere else, alright?”

“Fine,” Louis said, very ready to cut Jake down to size.

They went through a pair of doors, into an silent hallway. All there was in here were carts stacked with dirty plates. Another pair of doors were at the opposite end of the hall.

“You can’t expect everyone to lie and say they’re fans of yours. I say what I think,” Jake said.

“You could’ve said ‘no comment.’”

“Right, ‘cause you definitely said ‘no comment’ on Twitter. You and that Irish bloke made the story blow up, you know.”

“Just learn some basic fucking manners, you _massive_ wanker.”

Louis was getting to Jake now – Jake slid close toward him, threatening. His voice lowered into a cutting whisper:

“I sometimes have to be a wanker because I find it hard to watch a bunch of puppets spreading awful music to the mass population, all for the sake of fame. Don’t you know that your music is calculated to make money? That’s all it is. Nothing meaningful about it.”

“At the end of the day, people enjoy our music.”

“Yeah, that’s important too, but I value integrity as much. Pop acts should write their own songs if they want any respect. Then again, if I were in your shoes, I’d do what you do – muck around, sing whatever the record label wrote for me. Less embarrassing ‘cause I wouldn’t want to take credit for writing shitty songs.”

Through gritted teeth, Louis said, “You’ve just confirmed everything I’ve ever thought of you, mate! You’re full of pretentious hipster shit and you’re rude – and fucking self-centered to top it all off!”

Without breaking eye contact, they both stepped closer to each other.

***

“And then they started making out,” Zayn says.

Louis nods proudly.

“Seriously?” Brooke exclaims. “Christ, I don’t understand love-hate relationships. Sounds like you two were about to _maim_ each other.”

“Well,” Louis says, looking up to the ceiling in thought. “It’s... exciting! When you hate each other, the ride up is all the more fun.”

“And you were able to ignore how much he just disrespected your career?”

“No intense psychoanalysis allowed, okay?” Louis says. 

“I think of it this way,” Liam begins. “Jake and Louis stopped mentally ageing by the time they turned eight. They pull each other’s hair because they like each other. The more attraction there is, the harder they tease, and the more they know how much they want each other.”

“Oh my God,” Brooke says, not knowing what else to say about the relationship, other than that it was utterly dysfunctional.

***

Louis dug his face into Jake’s neck. Pressed right into each other and both wearing dark clothes, they looked like a terrifyingly large, crooked-legged beetle. And with the noises coming from their throats, it sounded more like they were suffocating rather than having a good, well-ventilated time.

“Um,” Jake said. “You smell like flowers.”

“Mmph!” Louis said against his neck. That fucking One Direction perfume was still on him. At least he could brag about its lasting power after tonight.

He tugged at the zipper on Jake’s jacket. After four unsuccessful pulls, Louis realized he needed to give it one grand heave. He pulled too hard though – Jake was propelled forward, and in turn, made Louis stumble backward into one of the carts. Two plates rattled off it and shattered on the floor. Louis didn’t go unscathed – he also hit his head on a hanging light.

He recovered quickly though, and went back to Jake’s zipper, which was demanding all their attention now. They both pressed their fingers to it, coaxing it down. It wasn’t moving.

“Cockblocker!” Louis said to the zipper. Frustrated and desperate, he thought insulting inanimate objects would be effective.

And then, to frustrate him further, someone came through the door at the end of the hallway, making Louis and Jake jolt apart. As this person walked by them, Louis recognized who it was.

He had a snaggletooth.

He had a silver tray in his hand.

“Quiche?” the server asked.


End file.
